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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend....

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To: Sully- who wrote (373)	2/5/2004 5:40:17 PM
From: Sully-	of 35834

the nuclear issue - Transcript of Tenet address on WMD intelligence cont'd..... ....Let me turn to the nuclear issue. In the estimate, all agencies agree that Saddam Hussein wanted nuclear weapons. Most were convinced that he still had a program and if he obtained fissile material he could have a weapon within a year. But we detected no such acquisition. We made two judgments that get overlooked these days. We said that Saddam did not have a nuclear weapon and probably would have been unable to make one until 2007 to 2009. Most agencies believed that Saddam had begun to reconstitute his nuclear program, but they disagreed on a number of issues, such as which procurement activities were designed to support his nuclear program. <font size=4> But let me be clear: Where there are differences, the estimate laid out the disputes clearly. So what do we know now? David Kay told us last fall that, quote, "The testimony we have obtained from Iraqi scientists and senior government officials should clear up any doubts about whether Saddam still wanted to obtain nuclear weapons," end of quote.<font size=3> Keep in mind that no intelligence agency thought that Iraq's efforts had progressed to the point of building an enrichment facility or making fissile material. We said that such activities were a few years away. Therefore it's not surprising that the Iraq Survey Group has not yet found evidence of uranium enrichment facilities. Regarding prohibited aluminum tubes, a debate laid out extensively in the estimate and one that experts still argue over, were they for uranium enrichment or conventional weapons? We have additional data to collect and more sources to question. Moreover, none of the tubes found in Iraq so far match the high-specification tubes Baghdad sought and may never have received the amounts needed. Our aggressive interdiction efforts may have prevented Iraq from receiving all but a few of these prohibited items. <font size=4> My provisional bottom line today: Saddam did not have a nuclear weapon, he still wanted one, and Iraq intended to reconstitute a nuclear program at some point.<font size=3> We have not yet found clear evidence that the dual-use items Iraq sought were for nuclear reconstitution. We do not yet know if any reconstitution efforts had begun. But <font size=4>we may have overestimated the progress Saddam was making. <font size=3> cont'd....... edition.cnn.com

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